• The business case for BCM – 81 per cent of managers whose organisations activated
their Business Continuity Management (BCM) arrangements in the last 12 months
agree that it effectively reduced disruption. The same number agree that the
cost of developing BCM is justified by the benefits it brings their organisation.

•• Adoption of BCM –
adoption of BCM continues to rise cementing a sharp increase in uptake over the
past two years. Overall 61 per cent of managers report that their organisation
has BCM in place, up from 58 per cent last year and 49 per cent in 2010. Public
sector organisations remain more likely to have BCM, with 73 per cent reporting
BCM arrangements (consistent with 2011). Reported levels in the private and
not-for-profit sectors have both increased, to 52 and 60 per cent respectively.

•• Drivers of BCM –
corporate governance remains the biggest external driver of BCM, with 42 per
cent of managers highlighting it as a catalyst for their organisation
implementing or changing BCM. Demand from existing or potential customers makes
up the second biggest driver (37 per cent), followed by regulation/legislation
(33 per cent).

•• Reasons for not having BCM – some organisations are adopting a casual or ad hoc
approach to managing disruption. Of those managers whose organisations do not
have BCM, 54 per cent say their organisation rarely suffers from disruptive events
and 46 per cent deal with disruptions as and when they happen.

•• The scope of BCM –
of those who have BCM in place, 83 per cent say their BCM includes strategies
for maintaining or recovering business critical services and products in the
face of disruption. Eighty-one per cent say that their BCM contains IT backup
arrangements.

•• Supply chain – one
fifth of managers report that their organisation expects their business
critical suppliers to have BCM and only 7 per cent expect this of all their
suppliers. A quarter of managers say their organisation does not require its
suppliers or outsource partners to have BCM.

•• Disruptive events of 2011 – almost four in ten managers report that the BlackBerry
outage in 2011 caused their organisation some disruption, while 55 per cent of
managers say their organisation was affected by public sector strikes. The
riots last summer caused disruption for 26 per cent of managers, with the worst
of the disruption felt by managers in central and local

government and the emergency
services.

•• Disruptive weather –
49 per cent of managers report that severe weather conditions caused disruption
to their organisation over the last year, making it the leading cause of
business disruption for the third year running. Thirty-seven per cent report
that they have formalised their arrangements for managing the impact of severe
weather as a result of the last two years’ heavy snow. Nonetheless, one in ten
admits they are still not very well prepared for snow.

•• Preparing for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – a quarter of managers say their organisation will allow
staff to work flexible hours and 17 per cent will enable staff to work
remotely. Over half of managers report that their organisation does not
anticipate any disruption as a result of the Olympic Games. However, this
varies greatly depending on region, falling to just 24 per cent of managers in
London.